


Cat got your tounge? (Rewrite)

by SkySharksandBlazingJaws



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21736501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkySharksandBlazingJaws/pseuds/SkySharksandBlazingJaws
Summary: Whoever said monsters don't exist made a big mistake,Or,Leo learns to deal with being a cat...
Relationships: Nah... maybe later
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

The battle turned quickly. Leonardo had never seen anything go down like this and he assumed his brothers hadn't either. They'd been fighting some foot bots, as you do, in an abandoned workhouse. The place was dusty and full of old boxes, covered in dull greys and browns.

A large smash had disrupted them all.

Even the robots paused. Purple dragons burst from the broken wall screaming and flailing their arms. From the rubble and dust two large bodies were tangled together, grunting and snarling like feral beasts, they were all covering their eyes from the debris, unable to see properly through the mist. He gave the call to retreat but as usual nothing went to plan, they were separated; Michelangelo and Himself, and Raphael and Donatello.

He was unaware how the other two got out but he gave Mickey a leg up, about to jump up with him when something slammed into him. Over the mess of fighting he stepped on the back of the brown furry back to jump up onto the scaffolding. Not without getting a nasty swipe on the leg, the two of them quickly fled. Looking down he saw a viscous fight, a reddish-brown wolf and a tabby-looking cat were brawling, they were as tall as Master Splinter at least, tearing and biting at each other.

\--

Currently Donnie was looking at his leg, examining it. He took a swab and cleaned it up. He said the cut was caused by a curved claw, so must have been the cats, and left a strange liquid behind. The lair was silent save for Raphs pacing. "Raphael," Donatello sighed, with a tint of agitation "for the _fourth_ time, would you stop that? I'm _trying_ to work"

"Did you see those things?" His red-masked brother questioned "they're still out there! We should have-"

"What Raph?" Leo cut him off- he'd been hearing this all the way home. "We had no equipment for taking down whatever they were"

"A good ninja can adapt!" He snapped, using Splinters words against him.

"We all want to keep these streets safe" Leo reasoned "but I can't let you risk going against something we know nothing nothing about"

"But-"

"You've had an eventful night I see" Splinter walked through the metal doors "I suggest you all go to bed early" it wasn't a suggestion.


	2. Chapter 2

The constant shifting under his skin crept under his scales, looking to his nightstand Leo gazed at the reflected 5:23 that stared back at him. Being nocturnal he should be dead asleep by now but he felt like his body was shifting under his skin. His shell was itching and felt heavy and tough like grit against his back. He rolled to his side and reached behind himself to scratch absently at the protection of his toughest body part. _Crunch._

Leo froze. A chunk of his shell had torn away. Slowly, like there was a creature waiting in the shadows to pounce, Leo moved his hand where he could see the chunk in his three-fingered hand. The things Mikey said on the way to the Lair echoed in his ears as he stared at the fragment in his hands, stories from his comic books about _werewolves_ and _monsters_ that shifted and broke apart under the moons influence. _They're children's stories_ , he told himself, pushing his fingers together and watching the shell piece chip and splinter like bark from a dieing tree.

Turning his head he stared back at his shell, despite his ninja training and being nocturnal the dark still blanketed his shell from view, his scales were crawling with his trembling as he reached to turn on the lamp, _what would he see?_ As light exploded into the room Leo squeased his eyes shut against the burn of it, the heat of the room was making him dizzy. After a few minutes of blinking away the bright spots that danced across his vision Leo looked behind him. He wished in that moment that the blanket wasn't twisted around his feet from his constant twisting. His shell was _peeling away_ , that's why everything felt so rough, there was layers of his shell thin as tracing paper splayed across his back- chunks of thick parts- small chips- _I'm going to be sick_.

He turned to his front, the same. It was peeling away. Leo had never gotten shell rot before, let alone to such an extent overnight. If it was shell rot... what should he do? Should he get Splinter? Donnie?

Suddenly lurching over his bed Leo threw up, his stomach bursting with pain, the vile substance was rank against his tounge, it raked across his throat like claws of tiny cats. The vomit stared back at his, blotches of red decorated the surface like petals of a molting rose. His carapace had snapped in two, his shell along with it, he was bent double in a position he'd never been able to be in before in pain he'd even fantomed. He didn't know if he was screaming or just gargling for breath as he desperately clutched his tummy, mindlessly he clawed away at the hard, jagged pieces stabbing ruithlessly into him. Leo didn't even notice that he was peeling away whole chunks of his shell. They littered his bed mindlessly.

_Why was no one helping him?_ Through the heat, pain and misery he screamed again but no sound escaped, insted copper lined his mouth as he coughed up a stream of red. His breaths came in frothy pants, he was surprised he wasn't breathing fire at this point. Leo tried to roll away from the mess of red, his whole shell shifted with the motion, a sensation he'd never _ever_ felt before. His shell was supposed to be _firm_ , _strong_ \- it was supposed to _have his back_. Litteraly.

_It was his spine_.

No wonder his belly was rolling in misery. _Is this how I die?_ The heat of his pain struck out like lightning but there was no thunder to warn him. His back arched _far_ up in a motion impossible for his shell which _crackled_ like a bloody biscuit, his muscles spasmed and rocked under his shell, an upward motion. _His body has pushing his shell away_.

His legs, tucked under him, trembled with pressure, the meat of his muscles squirming against his bones. _Dont take my legs too. Not my shell and my legs. Not both. Please._ his painc increased as pain shot down his back, it didn't stop, it shot down to his tail bone and _pushed_. Curled into himself he stopped tugging at the peices falling away from his stomach as pain gripped his hands. _No. No no no NO_. It felt like something was peeling them apart. His legs seized under him, kneeing himself in his tender _unprotected_ tummy as he coughed a wet wheeze of agony.

His bones were splitting apart, forming a new shape under his legs, muscles crawling around to find a better position to watch his suffering. He felt his fingers splitting pulled apart as pain shot from his palms like snakes crawling up the new space. His body _ached_ and _pulsed_ and _hurt;_ as it _tore itself apart._ The agony in his back crawled up to his head. The pulling of his .. _spine?_ continued down past his back dragging with it muscle. He could feel the the hardness of bone in his back. He had a _spine_. _My shell. What about my shell?_ His legs seized, spasmed, snapped as he lay panting on his side. His hands shaking like his body.

The pants he bragged, uneven, from his tired body slapped against his with each breath. Tears streaked down already-damp paths down his face. His new forming muscles bragging over his lungs and squeezing. He could feel each breath against his ribs and the wet, rotting shell draped over them. The pain dragged up to his head and dug down into his ears and his skull, it pressed against his snout and mouth. _Moving the bone_. He snapped his head forwards to escape and welcomed the darkness that met him.

It didn't last long.

He woke in a gasp of fire. Agony raced through his body. He coughed a sharp pebble from under his tounge and stared, dazed at the tooth displayed in the blood. He'd been rolling around, he could tell. His shell hung from him in tatters like a blanket draped over him. He couldn't stand the pain as him gums shifted in the _new structure_ of his face. What am I becoming? He gasped and choked as his gums shoved another tooth away at the same moment his spine _forced_ past his back, past his tail bone. An actual tail.

His legs stretched out, a new forming of bones made them feel weird. Wrong. His toes were stiltting like his fingers, they were expanding like the bone was pushing out past the skin and muscle. He gagged as teeth pushed away the old ones and _shoved_ new ones brutally in the sore openings felt behind, he was spitting one teeth in time with the pain trembling through his body. As he coughed, panted, wheeled, gagged and whimpered. He closed his eyes and wished for the end.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a particular breed of cat in mind when I describe Leo's cat appearance. It's a rare breed with only 2 breeders in the world! They're gorgeous cats called "curled eared keesto", they're commonly polydactyl but I wont be using that bit...
> 
> I've added in a picture of a beautiful boy I'm baseing my description on bred by "gaynorqueenanne" on Instagram. Definitely check them out their cats are to die for!
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/p/B1cQ0X1HuR2/?igshid=5m4tkfssvg56

Leo woke to a ringing in his ears and pain all over. His body ached and itched, he could smell the repulsive stench of vomit mixed with the copper of blood and feel the dry, cracked liquid stuck to his face where he'd been withering in pain. He curled his lip in disgust, stomach churning again as he raised a weak, shaking hand to wipe the gross stuff away. Fur. Soft fur brushed his face when he made contact, warm pads of skin feeling the cold, crusty blood on scaleless skin. Hand suspended he froze. Untill he couldn't, his arm flopped to the tattered mattress as he wriggled to sit up, trying to epen his eyes against the desperate wish for a pain-free sleep.

Peeling his eyes open was tough, almost as tough as leading a team of rowdy teenagers-and Donatello. His smart brother would know how to fix him... maybe. His eyes fixed on the bludded numbers on his alarm, 08:14 PM it read. Training started at 08:30. He was going to be late. Would they find in suspicious that he was late? _Why should I care? I can't hide this..._ he looked down at himself. Everything's spinning... His head dropped back to the mattress feeling a stray tooth jab into his chin. He let out o moan of discomfort, an inhuman animal sound of pity.

Trying to be aware of the changes to his body was hard under the rocking waves of pain that smothered him, _relax, let your mind be empty of everything but awareness of yourself and your soroundings._ The words of master Splinter guided him, calmed him. When his state of pain became more of a dim tingling he tried moving again, first he wiggled his fingers, looking to the side he saw large paws, felt the strange sensation of _five_ fingers. His scaled skin was like a thin blanket over the new fur, spots where the scales had been torn and fur poked out beneath. His attempt to stretch the appendages surprised him with the appearance of sharp, pointed claws unsheithing themselves. His joints ached with the new movement.

The increasing urge to lick and groom the dead, shedding skin away from his fur crawled through his rationality and through the pins and needles he watched the fur rising along his arms. A movement on his head shook him into ice, raising a ... _paw_ he reached up tenderly to find a head of hair... like a human, and ears at the sides of his head, soft and curled like a tigers. Clumsy with the new paw he poked a finger down his ear and it flicked with a mind of it's own in aggatation.

He became aware of a new limb, it stretched down his new spine, past his butt in a long tail. It was strange having a long tail, his old tail was tucked inside his shell, hardly even noticeable. He raised the tail from the bed, it felt light but was tangled with his legs under the blankets. He flicked his tail in annoyance- then realized what he did. It just felt so natural, the same way the shock made him fold his ears back against his head. 

His tail patted against his legs which felt as new as his tail, he picked one leg up, his foot-paw braced on the bed as he moved his knee away from the other. Claws poked at the mattress as he tested his toes, his legs were covered in shedded scales that draped over the animal-angled legs, covered in fur. Leo wriggled onto his belly, feeling cold dampness stick to him but ignored in in faver of trying to get into a sitting position. It wasn't as easy as he thought; the room swirled around him if he moved too quickly or raised his head too far. His back ached with the new spine he gained and a chunk of shell that was stuck like a hoola hoop around his waist, dragginghim down and poking uncontrollably into him. Kneeling was awful, the pressure on his new joints had him gagging in pain and dropping the strength in his legs to flop onto his belly, legs splayed either side of him.

Huffing Leo peered at the clock 08:36, _have they forgotten about me?_ Leo ran his paw down his face, resisting the urge to _groom groom groom_. He felt a new face structure, human, the smooth skin and small nose, pinched eyebrows from his no dought stressed expression, the sharp jaw and high, pointed cheek bones. He rubbed away the scales clinging to his face, a sneeze built painfully in his nose and after feeling his lungs combustion with the effort of _a sneeze_ he removed his paw and stared at the bloodied snot covering his pink pads. _Yuck_. He wiped the liquid on his pillow, _it's a mess anyway_.

He could feel the parts of his body that differed from the rest, his torso was bare, human skin, like his head and arms. The feline arms started after the elbow where the hair thickened to fur, his bottom half was all cat, from the hips down. _It's odd... I bet I look ridiculous._

The patter of quick, running feet echoed down the hall, too light to be his brothers, April? The running halted outside his door and lingered there. Leo could almost smell the questioning, unease... worry? The clock read 08:47. _Looks like Splinter gave me a chance to get up... and I failed..._

"Leo?" A questioning voice inquired behind his door, deffinately April "Are you awake?... um, Splinters asking for you- you know for training" she was clearly uneasy about giving him orders, was it because he was the eldest or because he was the leader? Or did she know he'd be in trouble for being late? He opened his mouth to call her but ended up just coughing up some blood and bile, it sounded wet and painful even to him with his ringing ears. _I'm going to worry her_ , "Leo?" This time she sounded panicked, he was panicking now too - could he not speak? "Leo if you dont say anything I'm coming in" she sounded more sure of herself this time. Firm.

Spitting out the last of whatever-that-was Leo plopped down with a pained huff, as embarrassing as April seeing him like this was it meant she could get someone to help him. The handle twisted as the door groaned open, light seeming into the dimly lit room, following April. He scrunched up his face waiting for a freak out but all he got was a squeaked "okay", then she was next to him "I suppose I've seen weirder stuff- this looks painful -uh, are you in pain?"

Leo licked his dry lips and tried to push the words from his unproductive mouth "y--ss" he choked out then coughed, blood splattered on his tounge and he groaned. Ears pinned to his head.

"Okay" April repeated "Um, where?" Leo turned his head to squint at her, hoping she'd get the hint "Everwhere- duh, dumb question. Okay. I'm just gonna go get Don- Splinter- Someone." She practically flew up and too the door "dont move" getting halfway from her mouth before she stopped herself and ran out the door.

_Could this get any worse?_

His eyes felt heavy as he waited for what happened next, he was almost asleep when a bony hand gently covered his forehead "Master Splinter, we should get him to the lab" the worried tone of Donnie piped up quickly. Leo couldn't find the strength to open his eyes as someone questioned "Is it safe to move him?" His room seeped away around him into darkness as he surrendered to sleep. _Finally_.

...

 _Snap!_ _Thump!_ Leo jumped, the motion less painful then before but his fur spiked up at the threat. "Woah!" The voice of Mikey piped up from the floor and Leo turned slightly to see him and Raphael on their butts on the floor holding one half on the shell that was stuck- they'd ripped it away. That meant the ones pulling away the other half must be Donnie and April... and Splinter. "Dude look- he's fluffing up like a puffer fish!" 

"Good afternoon, my son" Splinters warm voice spoke close to him, Leo peaked up at him, blinking slowly in welcome before he realised- _I'm doing it again._ _I can't expect him to speak cat_. _I hardly know what I'm doing_. His tail flicked in irratation, _I can't speak_. "We're going to take you to the lab. Raphael and Michelangelo will help you there whilst I help Donatello set up the lab." With a stiff nod Splinter left with Don and April trailing, worried, behind. 

"We've got you bro" Micky wrapped an arm under him and tugged him up only to jump away waving his hand about "ew- your covered in sweat and blood _and_ vomit- nasty man" now Leo was sitting with his butt on the bed, holding himself up by the arms he dropped his legs over the side of the bed, tail twitching nervously.

Raph pushed past the orange banded turtle "C'mon doofus, we' got a job to do" raph got under one arm and Mikey got under the other, Leo's paws gripped them at they stood up and he stood on his new legs for the first time. At the second step his aching legs gave way and he subconsciously dug his claws into his brothers arms. Mikey's "ow!" almost drowned out Raphael's hissed "shit", but with his new hearing Leo couldn't miss it. Leo glared at Raph and his foul mouth, still not releasing the grip of his claws- he'd fall! 

"Fuck this" the red turtle muttered, ducking down and flipping Leo over his shoulder. Leo growled a muted compliment as the rough surface of shell grated on his tummy. Raphael picked him up like he weighed nothing and stomped from the room with Mikey by his side.

"Dude I think you're hurting him." 

"Well the sooner we reach the lab the sooner I can put him down." But his strides got longer and he was clearly making an effort not to jostle him. Once in the lab Raph was careful not to just throw him down but placed him on the examination table lightly. Leo gazed over at Donnie and they seemed to share a thought:

_Where oh where to begin._


End file.
